THE ELEVENTH OF SEPTEMBER: I hope y'all will pardon the thin posting here over the past month. In the latter half of August I was on the road a lot (not for the first time), and then school started right after Labor Day with new responsibilities and a new boss.

Well.

Eleven years have gone by, Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (among others in a large rogue's gallery) are dead, and al Qaeda is tottering around the world. Good. President (G.W.) Bush and President Obama both deserve some credit for that, to say nothing of our splendid armed forces.

But now is no time for relaxing our guard, or forgetting the despicable and inhuman nature of our enemy. Think about those burning towers. Think about the 3,000 dead. Think about Todd Beamer and his crew of heroes who saved the White House or the U.S. Capitol from sharing the fate of the World Trade Center. Think of the Americans beheaded by al Qaeda.

I think about those things every day, and I'm still angry.

Just so's you know, I have a major post in development that will speak to my growing conviction that the neoconservatives of the Republican Party have been pushed aside by a group that I will call neoconsumptionists

—modern-day robber barons who say in effect (to quote the immortal Dave Berg): "Call us Robbin' Hoods... we robs from the poor and we gives to ourselves!" Scott Walker was the test balloon for the neoconsumptionists; Romney/Ryan want to take the philosophy nationwide.